Michael and Sammy's Candide "work while I'm gone" assignment

Sammy Katz and Michael Reinhart

We learned that a number of historical events inspired Voltaire to write Candide. A major impact was that of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and tsunami. The natural disasters impacted Voltaire because they made him reject Leibnizian optimism. In Candide, Voltaire subtly rejects Leibnizian optimism when he wrote about the earthquake in Lisbon. Also, Voltaire got his inspiration to do a satire from the satirical picaresque novel, Simpilicius Simplicissimus. Picaresque is a specific type of satirical novel in which the adventures of an engagingly roguish hero are described in a series of usually humorous or satirical events that often depict the everyday life of the common man. Voltaire writes a picaresque novel. Candide represents the hero and the stories told upon his travels depict events of the average person. (Wikipedia)

In the 1980’s, the Vatican Church and the pope himself forbade Candide. It challenged the Catholics as well as religion as a whole. Voltaire covered all complex human elements in Candide. He wrote about rape, war, theft and sexual trafficking. Anti-Semitism is present in the novel, however, Voltaire most likely did not see it as an evil thing. Voltaire tries to show us that one should structure his or her life around enlightenment but also to defend against evil. The book balances optimism versus pessimism by using characters Martin and Pangloss. Martin was not an optimist at all. Pangloss on the other hand was a total optimist, his opinion on the world being the best possible world can’t be shaken no matter his experiences. The evil in this world is overwhelming and Voltaire is trying to show us that through Candide. Candide saw a lot of evil but believed that if you worked at it you could fix it. He also thought if you did it with a society you could diminish the evil of the world at a better pace and in a better society. Voltaire shows us, that Candide thought this but when he tried creating this society he didn’t diminish it for the world he just ran away from the world to his own little farm. This, I feel, shows that Candide is used to show how evil the world really is and how naïve people are to think they can change it. Voltaire was still a huge activist for human rights, and he wanted change but realized the level of difficulty, even in his time. (Video)

When studying the map of Lisbon between 1576 and 1618, the time of Candide, we can see the geography, waterways and residential areas. One can see a normal city. I personally think this looks like a relatively normal city and one that I would like to live in. It has a nice geographical structure with good spacing as well as waterways. Also, when studying the image of El Dorado that is painted in the United States, one can derive that it is a utopia. The picture is a beautiful ocean with and angel hovering over a man and women sitting on rocks near the ocean. The angel represents perfection, and a utopia is a perfect city. Personally I would not live in El Dorado. I like the idea of everyone doing his or her own thing. A utopia doesn’t allow that. (nypl.org)

All three sources deepened our understanding of the books. Candide is a picaresque novel. Picaresque is a specific type of satirical novel in which the adventures of an engagingly roguish hero are described in a series of usually humorous or satirical events that often depict the everyday life of the common man. Candide is also a bildungsroman. A bildungsroman is a novel dealing with one persons spiritual education. Voltaire does exactly that in his novel, Candide